Influential Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston says she’s against the road-money constitutional amendment because it would tie the hands of future budget writers, elevating transportation as a higher priority than other crucial state services.

Last week, Thompson was one of 13 Democrats who helped deny the needed 100 votes for the proposed amendment. It failed, 84-40. That prompted Gov. Rick Perry to call a third special session, with road funding so far the only topic.

On Monday, Thompson said in an interview that she wasn’t “trying to be dilatory at all.”

She said diverting future rainy day fund revenue to roads could mean “there’s no money for other critical needs that may arise.”

Every session, the Legislature should be free to apply available money to what it sees as the state’s needs, said Thompson, the House’s second most senior member and the head of a panel that controls the flow of local and noncontroversial bills to the floor of the chamber.

“They shouldn’t have preferential treatment over the others,” she said of Texas Department of Transportation officials. “Why don’t we put education in the Constitution? … Why don’t we put Medicaid in there?”

The House continued debating the topic late Monday, starting with an enabling bill that takes only a simple majority to pass. It was unclear whether the constitutional amendment would receive the two-thirds vote needed to advance.

Big business groups urged lawmakers Monday to get a move on and send voters a road-funding measure they claimed is vital to continued growth of Texas’ economy.

“The need for additional money is as clear as can be,” said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, the state’s premier business lobby.

He joked that traffic tie-ups forced one chamber of commerce executive to miss a Capitol news conference about improving roads.

State leaders haven’t acted in a major way on transportation funding, despite state highway planners’ plea that they need $5 billion a year more just to maintain current levels of congestion.

Gov. Rick Perry, who has helped block serious consideration of gasoline tax increases and higher vehicle registration fees, nevertheless has summoned lawmakers into a third special session. The Republican governor has asked them to rearrange some existing revenues, so roads will get more.

Hammond said state inaction on roads and water supplies has begun to harm economic development efforts.

“We know that other states … are using this against us: ‘Don’t go to Texas. They don’t have water and they don’t have roads,’” he said.

Update at 4:31 p.m.: A final paragraph has been added, to discuss lawmakers’ options for spending available cash.

Original item at 3:21 p.m.: Comptroller Susan Combs has told state leaders she’s expecting $900 million more in oil and natural gas production taxes this year than she thought back in January.

The two energy production taxes “continue to perform better than expected this fiscal year,” which ends Aug. 31, Combs told Gov. Rick Perry and top legislative leaders in a letter Wednesday. Under the Texas Constitution, she has to update leaders on the state’s financial situation at the start of each special legislative session.

In her biennial revenue estimate in January, Combs predicted the oil and gas severance taxes would generate nearly $3.4 billion. So her update is a 27-percent increase, “reflecting higher than forecast prices,” she wrote.

Although independent economist Stuart Greenfield has been encouraging Combs to increase her revenue estimate for this fiscal year, some suspect she has not changed it — and won’t — because the sales tax, the state’s revenue workhorse, is barely coming in as she predicted. It’s actually at risk of falling short if last month and this month aren’t strong ones for sales tax receipts.

John Heleman, chief revenue estimator for Combs, told House lawmakers on Thursday that motor vehicle sales tax, which is the second-largest source of general purpose state revenue, is right on target. So Combs can’t squeeze an overall uptick in revenues from there.

Budget analyst Eva DeLuna Castro of the Center for Public Policy Priorities pointed out Friday that lawmakers this year cut general purpose tax revenues over the next two years by $1.1 billion, through tax cuts.

“Maybe things are better than they appear to be but once they cut taxes, that [available cash] number has to go down,” she said.

Still, the new cash whets the spending appetite. After diverting as required three-quarters of the $900 million in energy taxes to the rainy day fund, Combs said “$225 million is available for general-purpose spending.” In her July 1 letter to lawmakers, she said they had left $683 million unspent. So there’s about $900 million more of available money for lawmakers to spend, and some are ready to use it for roads, college construction and firefighters. Thank goodness they’re still in session.

Speaker Joe Straus, shown on the final weekend of the regular session in May, when he had fewer gray hairs.

The Texas Senate jump-started the third special legislative session by tentatively passing the constitutional amendment on road funding that House and Senate negotiators agreed to last weekend. But House Speaker Joe Straus was just as quick to point out that’s a losing proposition and that lawmakers should keep “open minds.”

By a 22-3 vote, the Senate hustled to approve the same version that on Monday failed in the House, where it fell 16 votes short of the needed 100.

The measure would have voters next year decide whether to split future rainy day fund revenues 50-50 between transportation and the rainy day fund. By a bill, not a constitutional amendment, the Legislature would create an arrangement where key lawmakers could turn off the spigot of money to highways if they feared the state’s savings account was insufficiently robust. The roads helped couldn’t be toll roads.

“Continuing Texas’ success long into the future requires that we take bold steps now to maintain our state’s infrastructure and keep up with our growing population and the need to move more and more goods to market,” Perry said. “I commend Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and the members of the Senate for doing their part to keep Texas moving on an upward trajectory of economic fortune.”

But Straus, R-San Antonio, told reporters that he disagrees with the strategy.

“I don’t think that you can keep pushing uphill the same bill that was losing support, not gaining, as the summer wore on,” Straus said.

Straus noted he’s appointed a seven-member select panel on road funding. He said it and a Senate counterpart should be given time to try to find a “sweet spot” that will draw consensus and bring the third special session to a successful outcome.

Rep. Joe Pickett, a leading House transportation policy writer, says the Legislature’s infantry is exhausted and it’s time for a meeting of the generals.

“We’ve taken this pretty far a couple of times now,” Pickett said of lawmakers’ efforts this summer to provide a modest boost in state funding of roads and bridges.

But the push got snared by abortion politics in the first special session. In the second, it caught its pants leg in a complex bramble of disagreements that include philosophical clashes over how much money is needed in the state’s rainy day fund; many Democrats’ resentment that public schools play second fiddle to infrastructure in the state budget process; and increasingly petty resentments among Republicans who run the show. The whole thing is playing out as top Republicans figure out their futures, in a game of musical chairs for statewide offices, and lowly Republicans look over their shoulders to see if they’re getting a primary opponent this winter.

“Maybe the Big 3 should meet and see if they have any suggestions on how to get this over the line,” Pickett said, referring to Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio.

“Give us some guidance or an outline” Pickett pleaded. He said several lawmakers belonging to both parties have suggested that the top leaders should huddle.

The House maintained joviality about a dreaded third special session as it adjourned the second overtime of the summer Tuesday afternoon.

Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, told members that Gov. Rick Perry plans to summon lawmakers back into a third session. That will occur 30 minutes after final adjournment of the second, which will be when the Senate wraps up, Straus said.

Although my colleague Christy Hoppe has reported here that Perry will place transportation on the agenda of the third special session, some tea party-backed House Republicans have urged the Republican governor to add topics such as campus carry, other gun rights legislation and curtailment of teacher lesson plans developed by the Texas Education Agency’s regional service centers that have angered some social conservatives.

“Did the governor say what’s on the call?” Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, asked Straus. The speaker said he doesn’t know what’s on the agenda.

Dutton continued, “Well, do we assume it’s just transportation or has he had some other revelations that he’s not told us about?” The line drew some chuckles.

“Mr. Dutton, the proclamation has not been delivered yet,” said a straight-faced Straus.

Dutton added, “Could we get a group to send over to the governor to find out what’s going on?”

Straus, referring to how Dutton has served in the House nearly 30 years and is third in seniority in the chamber, had a quick riposte.

“As his classmate years ago, why don’t you head in that direction?” Straus joked.

Dutton, though, had the last word. “I would, but he doesn’t answer my calls nor does he open the door,” Dutton said of Perry. The House then adjourned.

Political junkies got a glimpse of the coming battle for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor on Monday when Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, rushing to the defense of GOP road-money negotiators, tweaked Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston for suggesting the Senate side “caved” in haggling with the House over the weekend.

Patrick criticized Senate negotiators for their work on the transportation measure. He said they should have kept a provision ensuring a minimum balance in the state’s rainy day fund. The measure would re-route to roads half of future rainy day revenues.

When bill sponsor Sen. Robert Nichols said putting a floor into the Texas Constitution could impair lawmakers’ ability to respond to an economic crisis, Patrick ignored that point and cast the weekend’s decision-making as a concession to a House leadership swayed by Democrats who can’t wait to spend all the money in the rainy day fund as soon as they get into power.

“For some reason, at the end we caved,” Patrick said. “The conservative viewpoint seems to have lost out, and the viewpoint of ‘we want to be in a position to spend more money one day when we’re in control’ won. That makes me very unhappy.”

Dewhurst, who is running for re-election against Patrick and two other prominent Republicans, broke in with a defense of Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and the Senate negotiating team.

“The word ‘caving’ is an inflammatory word,” Dewhurst said. “Do you feel like you caved?” he asked Nichols. The senator responded, “No sir, I don’t.” He went on to say his actions on the bill reflected a conservative position.

Dewhurst also referred to another criticism from Patrick, that the rainy day fund would not be adequately protected. With prodding from Dewhurst, Nichols also disputed that assertion.

When Nichols was finished, Dewhurst called on another senator as Patrick tried to get his attention, saying, “Mr. President, Mr. President.”

Dewhurst told Patrick he was “no longer recognized” to speak on the bill as another senator had the floor. Patrick, though, shot back: “You made comments on a point I made. I think that was out of order.”

Given an opportunity by Dewhurst to follow up his comments several minutes later, Patrick declined, repeating that Dewhurst had deviated from standard practice of the presiding officer.

Lawmakers may be about to serve up a cool billion more in funding for roads, but they also could add a little stick: A study of whether “employee salaries and benefits” are bloated at the Texas Department of Transportation.

When Gov. Rick Perry named former Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson to run TxDOT nearly two years ago, Wilson’s salary struck some people as excessive — $292,500 a year, or $100,000 more than former executive director Amadeo Saenz, a former road engineer who retired. At the time, the Perry-appointed commission that oversees TxDOT wanted key legislators who oversee the state budget to approve additional salary of $88,500 for Wilson, once a salary study could be completed.

The 88 grand Wilson bump never happened. Last year, the Austin American-Statesman reported that top executive salaries at TxDOT were up more than 40 percent over 2011 and paychecks of other high-level managers also rose sharply, in spite of deep budget cuts elsewhere in state government. This year, according to a database compiled by the Texas Tribune, 30 TxDOT employees are making more than $150,000 apiece.

As revised over the weekend, the enabling bill for a proposed constitutional amendment to provide about $900 million more per year for non-toll roads would create nine-member panels in both the House and Senate to study future transportation funding. Among the panels’ charges would be to include recommendations in a report due Nov. 1, 2014, about “whether there are opportunities to reduce the use of money from the state highway fund” for TxDOT’s overhead. The agency has about 11,500 employees.

The select committees also would study whether the state could accrue benefit by making the agency justify every dime in its $20.9 billion, two year budget through “zero-based budgeting.”

Toll roads wouldn't be eligible for any of the $900 million a year of new state funds for transportation under a constitutional amendment scheduled for a vote by the Texas Legislature on Monday afternoon.

As we reported here over the weekend, Texas lawmakers on Monday are scheduled to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to provide a modest bump in highway funding.

The amendment, which would be submitted to the voters at an election in November 2014, would direct to roads half of the rainy day fund’s future revenues. The fund, which is the state’s savings account, currently holds about $8 billion, which will grow to $11.8 billion over the next two years.

House negotiators insisted that none of the new transportation money could go to toll roads. Here’s the ballot language, which you can see in House-Senate negotiators’ conference committee report here:

“The constitutional amendment providing for the use and dedication of certain money transferred to the state highway fund to assist in the completion of transportation construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation projects, not to include toll roads.”

Since 2001, Texas has relied on greater borrowing to build non-toll roads and concessions payments from private comprehensive development agreements to build toll roads. But these approaches are viewed with increasing disfavor. The state Department of Transportation’s main bond programs “are, for all intents and purposes, exhausted,” said a recent House Research Organization report. An earlier Senate version of the constitutional amendment would have allowed TxDOT to use some of the new money to avoid issuing some general-revenue-backed bonds it still could issue. That’s debt avoidance. But the House insisted the provision be deleted. House strategists apparently decided any mention of bonds in the ballot language could confuse voters — and figured that this way, members can say they’ve avoided using some $300 million of tax dollars on debt service. The money all goes to construction.

Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, at left in 2011 photo, is leader of Senate's side in negotiations over road money.

House and Senate leaders reached final agreement Saturday afternoon on how to protect the state’s rainy day fund as they propose to shift half of future rainy day dollars into roads, according to an official close to the negotiations.

There would be no “floor” — or minimum balance for the state’s savings account — placed in the Texas Constitution, the source said.

Instead, the enabling bill for the road-funding constitutional amendment would say that 10 key lawmakers who monitor the budget from their seats on the Legislative Budget Board would adopt a minimum amount the rainy day fund should have. They would do that every two years, as they choose an estimate of personal income growth in Texas that defines what percentage cap is applied to certain state spending. That exercise, required under a constitutional spending limit approved by voters in the late 1970s, is usually performed by the board in November of even-numbered years, shortly before lawmakers return in January for their regular session.

Under the road-money deal, if budget board members can’t agree on a minimum balance number for the rainy day fund, then the Department of Transportation would get no new money from the proposal to split future rainy day revenues in half, with 50 percent going to roads and 50 percent going into savings. The enabling bill also would call for a joint House-Senate committee that would study transportation funding, the source said.